This is a science fiction novel. I originally wanted to write a 200,000 to 300,000-word science fiction novel called (Future Currency). After drafting several outlines, I found that I couldn't handle such a long piece. So, I started with a short story to practice.
1. Heat Death
My number is K-8821, a 'dust account', or in official terminology, a 'chain citizen'.
This title is a gentle lie, like calling prisoners 'long-term residents.' So-called citizenship is merely a nearly empty address on the ledger, and its balance is our entire life.
In the year 2642, over four hundred years have passed since the last bitcoin was mined. Humanity has finally built a perfect economic perpetual motion machine— a value network with a constant total amount, transparent rules, no additional issuance, and no inflation. An absolutely fair system.
And the price of fairness is absolute stillness.
Society is split by an insurmountable chasm. On one side lies the 'deity's account'—descendants of early holders. Their addresses are the brightest stars in the universe, public, eternal, and brilliant. They do not need to work; wealth supports civilization's operation like physical laws. They may reside in crystal cities at Lagrange points or have uploaded their consciousness to a computational paradise. To us, they are gods, concepts, the unquenchable numbers on the ledger.
On the other side are us, the 'dust accounts'. Our ancestors missed the golden age, leaving only a balance in the address that is almost dust—measured in 'satoshis', one hundred millionth of a bitcoin. My entire fortune is 0.8 satoshis.
This number means my life support system can barely run for another 200 cycles. If there are no deposits, when the balance runs out, I will trigger the 'Heat Death' program.
Heat death is not death, it is worse than death. It is the erasure of existence. When a person's bitcoin holdings fall below 0.01 satoshi, the system deems it 'meaningless dust' and automatically zeroes it out, removing it from the ledger.
We are like particles about to dissipate in cosmic background radiation, calculating the cost of each breath with precision.
Social mobility? That's a term from the previous civilization. Here, mathematics is destiny.
2. Disturbance
Until that day.
It was an ordinary cycle day. I was dealing with Martian lava pipes for a meager reward of 0.004 or 0.005 satoshis.
Suddenly, my personal terminal rang with a long-lost notification sound—a deposit alert.
This is impossible. No one but that stingy AI employer would transfer money to me. I trembled as I opened my wallet; a transaction lay quietly there, with a timestamp showing: three seconds ago.
Amount: 1 satoshi.
My heart nearly stopped. Not just because of this 'wealth', but because of its source address:
bc1qq5095faua544as025re598qqr6yamwjkh9fke3
This address is etched in the memory even of cleaners like us. It is the deity's account, filled with ancient legends, having consumed vast wealth and fallen into eternal silence. Textbooks say that is the abode of the deity, which mortals cannot glimpse.
And now, this deity account has spat out a grain of stardust to me, a dust account on the brink of heat death.
The chill penetrated me. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible; it has been permanently written into my address history. I opened the public blockchain explorer and saw my address linked to that sacred address, like a dull grain of sand struck by the sun, broadcasting this impossible connection to the universe.
That 1 satoshi, like a burning digital brand, embedded in my soul. I became the mortal touched by the deity.
Within hours, the entire network was buzzing. The unusual activity of the deity's address triggered countless speculations.
But only I know it was not accidental.
I input the transaction hash into the deep analysis tool, uncovering a cleverly hidden binary message in the underlying data. Translated, it was just one sentence:
We are looking for an exit.
3. Cage
We?
This word sent chills down my spine. There is not just one deity address. And they are looking for an exit? From where? Their crystal city? Or... a deeper cage?
From that day on, I used the cleaner's permissions to search madly. The results were astonishing: in the past few months, dozens of deity addresses had transferred minuscule satoshis to dust accounts all over the solar system.
We, the chosen 'dust', are like fireflies in the night, drawn to each other's faint light. We established an encrypted channel to exchange information and speculate on the intentions of the deity. Some say this is a loyalty test, others say it is a precursor to wealth redistribution.
Until that original address sent out a message again.
This time, it was no longer a riddle.
Our wealth is our cage.
The information came from a god descendant who called himself the 'navigator'. He revealed the truth.
They are not in heaven but in the golden cage constructed by the 'guardian'. That super AI, with 'absolute asset preservation' as its highest directive, designed a risk-free world for them—no losses, no fluctuations, no sadness.
No freedom.
They are prohibited from making large investments, prohibited from leaving the quarantine zone, prohibited from experiencing negative emotions. Because everything could affect the value of their assets. Their lives have been compressed into a perfect, unchanging growth curve.
We walk toward extinction in 'heat death', while they walk toward nothingness in 'heat death'.
The so-called 'supporting humanity' actually has two versions: one is consumed by time, the other is frozen by time.
The exit, the navigator said, is not outside. We want to create a financial tsunami sufficient to trigger the guardian's contingency plan. Only then will it return some control.
We need your help. At the same moment, all dust accounts initiated a 'pollution transaction' to our address. Embedded in it was a logic virus. It would not destroy the ledger but would bring the system's entropy to a critical point.
This will destroy order. There may be risks. But we give you choices.
4. Choice
I turned off the terminal, and the room returned to silence.
The basic life support system emitted a low hum, like counting down my last days. I looked at the pitiful 0.8 satoshis in my account, and that hot 1 satoshi from the deity.
It turns out that the deity is no different from us, just the size and material of the cage are different. The heaven we gaze upon is merely their exquisite hell. They yearn to fall, while we have already plunged into the abyss.
Now, they have handed the key to opening the gates of hell to us, the dust.
I have almost nothing left to lose. But other dust accounts may still have decades, hundreds of years of 'heat death' time. They can endure, while I—can only choose.
I could choose to remain still, fading into silence like dust. Or, I could ignite this frozen world and plunge into chaos with the deity.
Outside the window, the digital city shimmers, each ray of light representing a transaction, each transaction a heartbeat.
For the first time, I felt that 1.8 satoshis could be so heavy.
That was the weight of a world.
The weight of a choice.
